


Until the Day You Die

by wereheretostay



Category: Interstellar (2014)
Genre: flufffff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:44:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2623907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wereheretostay/pseuds/wereheretostay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murph wakes up from a nightmare, and nothing else in the world can soothe her worries away better than her father can. Her father, who has no idea how soon their world is going to fall apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the Day You Die

Cooper rolled over, slowly inhaling and exhaling as his bones creaked underneath his sweaty skin. His clock shined bright in the darkness, too bright. He reached out to turn it upside down so that it was sitting face down. It was 3:30 in the morning, the outside air cold and unforgiving with the promise of frost. 

Pulling his blankets around himself, Cooper tried to fall back asleep. He didn't even know what woke him up. Sleep was getting harder and harder to come by these days. If he didn't wake up because of a nightmare, he woke up from the wind howling outside, banging the shutters against the dusty glass of the windows or slamming the screen door shut. On an occasion that was becoming less and less rare he would crawl out of bed and grab a beer from the fridge. Come morning, the bottle would be empty, even though he had told himself he'd leave some for the next night.

On even rarer nights, he would grab the extra pillow beside him and reach into his nightstand and pull out the bottle of rosewater his wife had worn daily. He'd lightly spray it onto the pillow case and gather the pillow into his arms, the fabric bunched under his tightly crossed arms. 

But most nights, Cooper would merely lie in bed and squeeze his eyes shut, trying to think of anything other than the crash he was in, and the way the metal outside of the ship was cracked and bent just like his body could have been. He wouldn't dare let himself remember his wife's face as she died, or his kid's faces as they watched the life leave her eyes, or how he had had to resist the urge to punch the doctor in the face when he had told him they weren't going to waste any more time and effort and medicine on her because she was already gone. 

Though eventually morning would come, the sun shining in through the cracks of the blinds on his window with the promise of a new day. He'd get up and open them, wash his face and pull on a different shirt and go wake up his kids. 

Cooper loved his kids more than anything. He loved them more than he did himself, and he wanted the world for them, just like every father should. They were loving, bright, seeming to come from God himself instead of the wreck of a man Cooper knew himself to be. Tom was gentle-hearted and playful, romantic and caring, even if not the smartest kid. And then there was Murph, who was smart and stubborn and crude and kind. Both were a constant reminder of their mother, from their smiles down to the way the tears ran crookedly over their cheeks.

Sighing, Cooper ran a hand down his face. He turned his face into his pillow and tried to push everything out of his mind, trying to envision a black wall in front of his mind. 

It wasn't working. 

"Daddy?" Murph was standing at the doorway. The sleeves of her shirt were clutched in her hands, fists shaking. It was one of Cooper's, navy blue and frayed, coming down to the tops of her knees. She was almost invisible in the pitch black darkness, but it looked like she was trembling slightly. Cooper heard her sniff, and another sigh escaped his lips. Not a frustrated sigh, but a sad, sorry sigh, one that carried memories and whispers of better days. 

"Yeah, Murph. Come 'ere." Cooper sat up and moved to the other side of the bed, patting the space next to him. 

Murph sat down on the bed, and with the faint light from the clock on the table next to her, Cooper could see that her lower lip was trembling under teeth that were sunk into the skin. He gathered her into his arms, pulling her onto his lap and against his chest. He could feel her shaking underneath his arms, not from the cold but from fear. "Murph..." He rested his chin against her shoulder, kissing her cheeks and jawline, rubbing her arms. "What's wrong, baby?"

"I... I had a nightmare. I watched Mom die, and she was bleeding, and I didn't know what to do and you and Tom were there. You were both crying, and I was crying, and then there was a fire and it was really big and the house burned down and you and Tom were both _gone_ and I was all alone, Dad." Murph sniffled. The soft sound was hidden under a cloth covered fist as Murph tried hard not to cry. "You were _gone,_ Daddy."

Cooper shut his eyes for a moment, trying hard not to cry himself. He didn't even know why, but all of a sudden he was emotional and he had an overwhelming surge of love for his daughter hit him like a blow in the chest. He couldn't bear to see her like this, in tears because she had thought she had lost him. She was only nine years old; death should have been a foreign concept to her mind, a mind that Cooper was afraid was becoming less and less naive and gentle by each day. 

Cooper shifted so that he could see Murph's eyes, turning her so that she was facing him. He thumbed his fingertip under her eyes, catching her tears on his finger. Her pale, blue-green eyes were wet and shiny with tears that had yet to fall as she looked up at her father. "Listen to me, Murph. I'm not going nowhere. I'm going to be here for your next birthday, for your graduation, for your first lover, your wedding day, I'm going to be here. I'm not going to leave you. Not ever." He gripped her shoulders and looked at her. "I'm staying right here with you until the day I die."

"P-promise?" 

"I promise, Murph." Cooper pulled his daughter into a tight hug. He felt the familiar shape of her body in his arms, gangly, thin limbs that wouldn't stop shaking no matter how hard Cooper squeezed her. "I promise."

_A/N - this makes me extremely sad. seriously, Matthew McConaughey is like my favorite actor dear gOD. but anyway. I was going to write this as just a little fluff with Cooper and Murph, but then it evolved into something heartbreaking. my idea for this was that Murph comes in and Cooper calms her down and he tells her that he's not going to leave her, and when this happens she's around nine years old. so it's a year before he actually does leave her, and I can imagine this conversation and his words floating around her head for years and years. their relationship absolutely kills me!_

_If you haven't seen Interstellar, I highly recommend it! I think it's my all time favorite movie, save Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. And I disagree with all the reviews - science can't be wrong if it hasn't happened yet and is simply based off an idea. I mean, it is all made up science, and of course it has a lot of logic behind it, but you can't criticize it because who's to say it's wrong, if it hasn't been discovered yet? That's science fiction for you, I guess. ugh, this movie tore me into pieces and I'm still absolutely heartbroken._


End file.
